


Gravity

by turnonmyheels



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-30
Updated: 2010-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnonmyheels/pseuds/turnonmyheels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not just the family we're born with, sometimes it's the family we make.  Written Yuletide 2008</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

Gravity

Fandom: The Fast and The Furious  
Written for: schmevil in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge  
by turnonmyheels

Happy Yuletide Schmevil I hope this satisfies.

 

Letty

The Toretto's have always been a part of her life. She can remember seeing Mia when she was just a toddler running through the market and every once in a while falling on her diapered bottom. Abuela always shopped at Toretto's market because it was in walking distance to their house. Her brothers would run ahead or fall behind, but Letty always stayed with Abuela because she loved the market, most especially Mrs. Toretto. Mrs. T was kind and pretty, so very pretty. She was exactly how Letty had always imagined her own mother would be.

Abuela and Mrs. T would cluck their tongues over how expensive bread was these days, and Big Dom -- he was always big, bigger than life even then -- either followed behind Mia, picking her up when she fell down, or trailed around after his dad in the garage, handing him tools when he asked for them. The days when Dom played with Mia, Letty played with Mia. The days he helped in the garage she'd follow, but Mr. T would always shake his head at her and say, "Little Letty! Beautiful girls like you don't belong in a dirty garage, go play with Bella Mia." He'd shoo her out of the garage and she'd be stuck with Mia. All big brown eyes and tiny pig tails.

It was hard not to like Mia, she was just a baby after all, but Letty wanted to play with Dom and his friends or some of the older kids at the market instead of playing patty-cake with Mia.

~*~

"Nina, I have to take your abuela to the doctor. Be a good girl and go play with Mia."

"What's wrong with Abuela?" That was the first time Letty felt fear. Abuela had been tired lately, and Letty sometimes saw her rubbing her chest.

Her Dad smiled at her tiredly. "Nothing the Doctor can't fix. Go on now, play with Mia."

She wanted to ask why she had to go play with the kid when her brothers could stay home, but it would do no good. It didn't matter that Letty wasn't a baby. It mattered that she was a girl, and girls couldn't be left unsupervised even if they had brothers old enough to watch them at home. Papa dropped her at the Torettos' and Letty felt her chest swell with an emotion she couldn't name. She didn't want to play with Mia. She wanted to be with her own family. Then she heard Dom's laugh, loud and happy coming from the back yard. She crept around the side of the house and saw Dom running back and forth between pushing Mia on the swing and playing with the boys. Those other boys -- Vince and Leon -- were there smashing their matchbox cars against one another in the grass, nothing out of the ordinary. They were always wherever Dom was. The funny feeling in Letty's chest only got bigger when Mia called out, "Catch me Dom!" before she flung herself out of the swing at her brother.

Dom caught her, letting out an "Oof, Mia, you're too big for that now!" before he set her on his shoulders and began running around the yard. Mia's shrieks and giggles were louder than Vince and Leon's engine noises and crashing sounds. Letty felt so out of place standing there at the corner of the house. Her own brothers never played with her, and while Letty was anything but shy, she felt out of place and left out.

A gentle hand cupped her shoulder. Letty whipped around to see Mrs. T standing beside her. "Don't be shy, Letty, go on and play."

"I'm not shy," Letty said and scuffed her toe in the grass, not wanting to look up at Mrs. T.

Mrs. T laughed softly and gave Letty a hug. "No, I can see you're not shy. Go on and play, I promise they'll be glad you're here."

"LETTY!" Mia's high voice rang out across the back yard. "Come play with me."

"See?" Mrs. T said and gave her a little push.

Vince and Leon looked up from their cars as Letty slowly walked toward where Dom was trying to stop Mia from climbing a tree. "Hey, Letty! Do you have any cars?"

"No." She could feel her face flush with embarrassment; the only toys she had were dolls even though she'd asked and asked for anything else instead. "My brothers won't let me play with theirs."

"Mia, go get us some cars." Letty looked up at Dom and smiled as Mia dashed toward the house. "Come on now, let's get a race track set up. Letty, see how many sticks you can find, Leon we need some rocks."

"Can there be a big lake the cars have to jump over?" Vince piped up eager as a puppy to gain Dom's attention.

"If you can find something to put the water in."

Vince scrambled to his feet and ran towards the garage. "Don't mess anything up," Dom called after him.

It didn't take long with Dom in charge and all of them helping. The track was oval and wide enough for five MatchBox cars. They raced and laughed and crashed their cars into one another; it was the best afternoon of Letty's life.

When Mr. T came home from work that afternoon, he sat at the picnic table drinking a beer and Mrs. T brought them all Kool-aid and cookies.

"That's a mighty fine track you've built kids," Mr. T said as he sat down next to Dom. He picked Mia up and sat her in his lap. "I bet I've got some stuff in the garage we could use to shore it up on this side, so if it rains it won't be knocked down."

The boys' faces lit up and Mia smiled up at her Dad, her face full of love. Letty felt a lump in her throat and tried not to be jealous. She couldn't remember a time her dad had played with her or any of her brothers, he was always too busy at the firehouse.

Mr. T turned to her and tugged her pony tail. "What do you think Letty? Think we could cut up some of those old tires and use them for asphalt?"

Letty smiled up at him and nodded. It didn't matter that her dad didn't have time to play with them, not when the Torettos lived nearby.

~*~

The summer that Letty turned fourteen, Dom and Vince and Leon and this new kid Jesse who just showed up one day spent the entire summer under the hood of whatever car Mr. T had in the garage. Mrs. T was sick. They all heard the grown-ups talk in hushed voices about breast cancer and radiation and chemotherapy. Abuela sent her to the Torettos every single day with something to eat. Casseroles, pies, baskets of fried chicken. Mr. and Mrs. T were in and out of the hospital all the time. They'd left Dom in charge of the garage and Letty in charge of the store.

Letty hated running the cash register. Couldn't stand stocking shelves or bagging groceries -- she wanted to help just not in the market, the garage was where she felt like she belonged. When Mia volunteered to run the market Letty was glad to turn the job over to her. Mia was only twelve and far too young to be in charge of anything but when Letty was underneath the RX-7 in the garage to do an oil change, Mia being on her own in the market was the last thing on her mind. Letty changed oil and rotated tires all day while Dom and the guys did more complicated repairs. The mood was always more subdued when Mr. T wasn't there, but they still ribbed each other and talked about cars and racing all day. Always racing and cars and how to design a better, faster, hotter car.

Letty had a knack with cars. They all had a knack with cars, something Mr. T had encouraged in them for years, but none of them was as passionate about it as Dom. Late nights, when she was at home helping Abuela washing up the dinner dishes, she could swear she heard the street racers. Knew that Dom was out there, scrambling, making bets, trying to make a name for himself.

~*~

Mrs. T never got better. She leveled off, sick and tired but there, filled with love and a tranquility that Letty greatly admired. She admired her strength more. As sick as she was, Mrs. T held her family, Letty and the guys, and most of the neighborhood together. When Letty's dad died fighting a fire in the Hollywood Hills, it was Mrs. T who stepped in and made the arrangements Abuela wasn't able to make. Letty was mostly numb. Her dad was gone, two of her brothers were in Iraq and couldn't get back home, and her other brothers and cousins felt more like strangers than family. Abuela cried all day and all night, unwilling to even try to get out of bed, leaving everything in Letty's hands.

Letty had never loved the Torrettos more than she did when they helped her make the funeral arrangements. Dom wrangled her brothers, making sure they were wearing their good clothes and shaved, while Mia wrote thank you notes in her painstakingly perfect handwriting for each dish that came in the door. As her aunts, uncles, and cousins came and went, and her brothers acted out, Letty felt numb and invisible at some moments and like an outsider looking in at others. These people who were her blood didn't see her. They grieved over her father, her absent brothers, worried that Abuela would grieve herself to death (which she did less than two months later, and once again it was the Torrettos who shored her up, held her and loved her and got her through it) and only gave Letty a passing half-smile and a squeeze on the shoulder. Their only concern for her, was to ask if she had a boyfriend and when was she going to marry. As the house filled to capacity each night she was grateful to leave and go home with the Torettos. Share Mia's bed and grieve with people who knew her.

She loved her blood family but the only thing that held them together was blood. With the Torettos, and with Vince, Leon, and even Jesse, there was something more, something she couldn't put into words that held them together.

~*~

Mia

For as long as Mia could remember, she had always been all arms and legs, tall and gangly with only the length of her hair marking her as a girl. She was numb, hollowed out inside, the need to cry overwhelming but the only thing Mia could think about as she stared at her reflection in the mirror was how she wished she was pretty. Pretty like Letty with full curves and a pouty mouth. Or pretty like her mother was. Had been and wouldn't be again. She wanted to scream and throw things into the mirror, break it and watch it fall to pieces all around her. Let out all the pent up rage and grief that bubbled inside at her mother's death but she couldn't. There were too many people in the house, and this, the way she felt right now, was private.

Someone knocked on her door. "Come in," Mia called even though she desperately wanted to be alone.

The door opened and Letty stepped inside, carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses, she looked as wrecked as Mia felt. Letty closed and locked the door behind her. "Dom sent this up, said you hadn't slept in days and that a little wine would help you fall asleep."

Mia couldn't help but snort, that was her brother all right, trying to fix things he couldn't and going about it all wrong. "He does remember I'm too young to drink?"

"I think you're the only person in the house who hasn't had at least a glass of wine all night." Letty poured them each a glass and sat on Mia's bed, hiking up her dress so she could sit cross-legged.

Mia sipped the wine and shrugged. "Italians. Food and wine cure all." Her voice hitched a little on "all" and she sipped her wine again to cover it. She switched on her stereo and sat beside Letty on the bed. Letty was quiet, occasionally drinking from her glass and tapping her toes to the beat of whatever song played on the radio. Mia gradually relaxed as the wine worked its magic, and she was grateful that Dom had sent Letty to her and not Vince or someone else who would have wanted to fill the silence with chatter or worse, try to make her laugh.

"I miss my mom." The bottle was long gone and they were no longer sitting, but lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. "If I miss her so much now, I can't imagine how much more I'll miss her later on."

Mia felt Letty take her hand and give it a squeeze. "You'll always miss her, no matter what. Eventually, you get used to it."

~*~

The house was always full. It felt empty at the heart, where her mother had been, but it was filled with Dom and the guys, her father and his friends, and Letty. At all hours, any day of the week, there were at least three people there whose name didn't end with Toretto. Mia wished they'd go away. She cooked and cleaned and did her homework and still, the house was full, someone was hungry, they were out of groceries. She had no idea at all how her mother had managed, she didn't want to know. She only knew that she was sixteen and felt like a disgruntled and overworked housewife and she wanted everyone to go the hell away and leave her alone.

Then her dad died.

Was murdered as Dom kept yelling to anyone who would listen. She hadn't known it but her life had been trucking along at 90 miles an hour and then BOOM! it crashed into a car going 91 miles an hour and the race didn't go on. It stopped. The only thing moving at all was Dom, and he was smashing and yelling and bashing. Out of control and then he was gone too.

It all happened so fast.

Vince and Leon tried to move in to the house when they took over the garage but Letty wouldn't let them. Mia had no idea what went down in the weeks between her father's death and Dom's arrest, trial, and sentencing. But at the end the gang was running the garage, Letty was living in Dom's room, and Mia found herself going to school and working at the market in the afternoons. Bills were paid, groceries bought, food cooked and eaten, and the house cleaned, but she didn't remember any of it. She moved through life in a fog, never really aware of anything around her.

Mia looked up from her trigonometry to find a plate of steaming chicken enchiladas in front of her. "Are you managing me, Letty?" Letty didn't respond. Mia pushed her notebook aside and pulled the plate closer, it smelled incredible. It tasted even better. She was halfway through the first enchilada when Letty sat down with her own plate. They ate in silence, as they did most nights -- both of them more comfortable letting the boys make the noise, except the boys weren't there Mia noted with a touch of surprise. She finished her meal, rinsed off her plate, and put it in the dishwasher.

The kitchen was clean. She opened the refrigerator and then the freezer, they were full. Mia walked through the house, things were where they belonged. The floor was vacuumed, there was toilet paper in all the bathrooms. There was laundry clean and folded sitting on her bed ready for her to put away. She brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas and went downstairs. Letty was on the couch drinking beer and watching tv.

"How long have you been doing everything?" Mia asked as she plopped down beside Letty.

Letty lifted a shoulder and changed the channel.

Mia mentally counted back. Letty had more or less moved in after her mother died, staying over nearly every night. Letty officially moved in bringing all her clothes and pictures and stuff the day Dom was arrested. Seven months ago. Her eyes filled with tears and Mia stubbornly blinked them away, she couldn't think about Dom without breaking down. His absence was worse than that of her parents because he wasn't dead, just gone and she couldn't even see him, he wouldn't let her. Refused to visit no matter how many times she made the drive to Lompoc with the gang.

So stubborn and full of pride, like Letty. If Mia tried to thank her for all she'd been doing it would just piss her off and honestly, Mia'd had enough of angry people around her. Instead she nudged Letty with her elbow and said, "Days of Thunder is on. Wanna drink some beer and make fun of Tom Cruise?"

Letty snorted and changed the channel to the movie. "Sounds good."


End file.
